COVID-19 | Digital Health

Ward K, Vagholkar S, Sakur F, Khatri NN, Lau AY. Visit Types in Primary Care With Telehealth Use During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Systematic Review. JMIR Medical Informatics. 2022 Nov 28;10(11):e40469. https://doi.org/10.2196/40469

Visit Types in Primary Care With Telehealth Use During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Systematic Review Background:Telehealth was rapidly incorporated into primary care during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there is limited evidence on which primary care visits used telehealth. Objective:The objective of this study was to conduct a systematic review to assess what visit types in primary

Yin K, Coiera E, Jung J, Rohilla U, Lau AY. Consumer workarounds during the COVID-19 pandemic: analysis and technology implications using the SAMR framework. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. 2022 Jul 1;29(7):1244-52. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocac061

Consumer workarounds during the COVID-19 pandemic: analysis and technology implications using the SAMR framework Objective To understand the nature of health consumer self-management workarounds during the COVID-19 pandemic; to classify these workarounds using the Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition (SAMR) framework; and to see how digital tools had assisted these workarounds. Read More.

Whole-genome sequencing – lessons for public health surveillance

Genomic sequencing has proven vital in detecting the source and variants of COVID-19, improving contact tracing, reducing disease transmission and ensuring health security for Australia. But genomic sequencing isn’t new and researchers from the NHMRC Centre of Digital Health (CRE) have been investigating it’s use in cases from public surveillance of Salmonella Typhimurium, predicting antibiotic

Fernandez-Luque L, Kushniruk AW, Georgiou A, Basu J, Petersen C, Ronquillo C, Paton C, Nohr C, Kuziemsky C, Alhuwail D, Skiba D, Huesing E, Gabaron E, Borycki EM, Magrabi F, Denecke K, Topaz M, Al-Shorbaji N, Lacroix P, Cornet R, Iyengar S, Gogia SB, Kobayashi S, Deserno TM, Mettler T, Vimarlund V, Zhu X. Evidence-based health informatics as the foundation for the COVID-19 response: a joint call for action to transform hopes and hypes into realities. Methods of information in medicine. 2021;(accepted Jan 20).

Background: As a major public health crisis, the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic demonstrates the urgent need for safe, effective, and evidence-based implementations of digital health. The urgency stems from the frequent tendency to focus attention on seemingly high promising digital health interventions despite being poorly validated in times of crisis. Aim: In this

Ellis LA, Lee MD, Ijaz K, Smith J, Braithwaite J, Yin K. COVID-19 as ‘Game Changer’ for the Physical Activity and Mental Well-Being of Augmented Reality Game Players During the Pandemic: Mixed Methods Survey Study. J Med Internet Res 2020;22(12):e25117

Background: Location-based augmented reality (AR) games, such as Pokémon GO and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, have been shown to have a beneficial impact on the physical activity, social connectedness, and mental health of their players. In March 2020, global social distancing measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the AR games developer Niantic Inc to

Reps JM, Kim C, Williams RD, Markus AF, Yang C, Salles TD, Falconer T, Jonnagaddala J, Williams A, Fernandez-Bertolin S, DuVall SL, Kostka K, Rao G, Shoaibi A, Ostropolets A, Spotnitz ME, Zhang L, Casajust P, Steyerberg E, Nyberg F, Kaas-Hansen BS, Choi YH, Morales D, Liaw S-T, Abrahao MTF, Areia C, Matheny ME, Aragon M, Park RW, Hripcsak G, Reich CG, Suchard MA, You SC, Ryan PB, Prieto-Alhambra D, Rijnbeek PR. Can we trust the prediction model? Demonstrating the importance of external validation by investigating the COVID-19 Vulnerability (C-19) Index across an international network of observational healthcare datasets. medRxiv. 2020:2020.06.15.20130328.

Background: SARS-CoV-2 is straining healthcare systems globally. The burden on hospitals during the pandemic could be reduced by implementing prediction models that can discriminate between patients requiring hospitalization and those who do not. The COVID-19 vulnerability (C-19) index, a model that predicts which patients will be admitted to hospital for treatment of pneumonia or pneumonia

Moynihan R, Sanders S, Michaleff ZA, Scott A, Clark J, To EJ, Jones M, Kitchener E, Fox M, Johansson M, Lang E, Duggan A, Scott I, Albarqouni L. Pandemic impacts on healthcare utilisation: a systematic review. medRxiv. 2020:2020.10.26.20219352.

Objectives: To determine the extent and nature of changes in utilisation of healthcare services during COVID-19 pandemic. Design: Systematic review. Eligibility: Eligible studies compared utilisation of services during COVID-19 pandemic to at least one comparable period in prior years. Services included visits, admissions, diagnostics, and therapeutics. Studies were excluded if from single-centres or studied only

Byambasuren O, Dobler CC, Bell K, Rojas DP, Clark J, McLaws M-L, Glasziou P. Comparison of seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infections with cumulative and imputed COVID-19 cases: systematic review. medRxiv. 2020:2020.07.13.20153163. preprint

Background. Accurate seroprevalence estimates of SARS-CoV-2 in different populations could clarify the extent to which current testing strategies are identifying all active infection, and hence the true magnitude and spread of the infection. Our primary objective was to identify valid seroprevalence studies of SARS-CoV-2 infection and compare their estimates with the reported and imputed COVID-19

Domestic Scholarships – COVID-19 and future crisis preparedness in healthcare

Apply now The Australian Institute of Health Innovation at Macquarie University are seeking suitably qualified candidates with pioneering ideas for research into understanding the current health system response to the pandemic and strategies for future crisis preparedness. They have FIVE scholarships available with the Ph.D. topic to be determined taking into account the interests, experience, and prior